What do you love most about business?

Personally I like the social aspect. Having employees changed my mindset quite a bit. Suddenly the livelihood of other people depended on me. It feels good "providing" for a bunch of people (if you pick people who aren't lazy or assholes of course). I'm not getting rich that way, but I'd rather give people the raise they deserve and be on good terms with everyone.

I like the idea of constantly growing and becoming better, and in turn, making more money based on my efforts.

14 months ago

Stark_Naked

@Playboyize Given that there are barely any niggers around, I suspect we're living on different continents...I wouldn't mind skin colour. But you have to bring the knowledge and experience yourself. I'm not hiring greenhorns. I'd rather pay more for a 55 yo expert (who is otherwise pretty much unemployable due to his age anyway and therefore hardworking and grateful as hell), than hire two idiot good-for-nothings. My customers also appreciate my hiring policy.@AwesomeTucker IT, outsourced network administration and tech support for big companies. I'm decent when it comes to computers, but I can't even provide the service I'm selling myself. I just run the joint, do all the book keeping and contracts and hope nobody clues into the fact, they could go freelance and make more money without me. So far everyone thinks it's a good arrangement though. They don't want the hassle of owning a business and I don't want to sell my own abilities. Everyone's happy.

I rely on my regular long-term customers very much though. If they ever decide to go for the cheapest bidder, it's probably lights out for me.

14 months ago

Boy_vs_Girl

@Stark_NakedHow did you learn how to do what you do? I'm wanting to start my own business (in billboard advertising) but there's little I can find on the internet in terms of securing leases, etc, for the boards to go on.

14 months ago

idontknow

@Crazy_Nice"deserve"Cheese dick kids are coming out of college and makimg over 100 grand a year.

14 months ago

Snarelure

@Boy_vs_GirlI already had a master of law, and as soon as I opened my company I enrolled for a bachelor degree in business. European universities are great - all the theoretical knowledge you could ever want, essentially for free.

Soft skills (like customer acquisition) are my weakpoint, hence why I mostly handle the backoffice. I couldn't help you anyway, since public advertising where I live is full of political nepotism. The billboards are usually owned by the communes and they make exclusive contracts with advertising agencies who are always run by people from the same party as the mayor. At least around these parts there's no starting in that business...

That would be compensation for inflation. I give my employees at a bare minimum the yearly inflation. Always. No exceptions. Nobody deserves their payment for the same work to devalue year by year. Raises beyond that are based on merits and how business is going in general.

14 months ago

StonedTime

@SnarelureI'm in the US, so no doubt that's happening here too but there's tons of land. How hard was it getting started?

@StonedTime Word of mouth and networking helped a lot. I had the luxury of knowing of an opportunity (ie a customer) before I made the final decision to start my business. I might not be the best to ask for start-up advice, I was really priviledged in this regard.

It was moderately hard. I like contracts, I like numbers. Still I probably wrote my first year's record about three times, since I always fucked up some basic stuff. If you make it into the third year, everything will start to become second nature to you.

Look for local start-up circles and business organisations. My local chamber of commerce helped me a ton (we have legally mandated memebership over here though). There was a bunch of helpful guides, presentations and personal help I received from them.

I always assume two things: First, if I had to deal with it, so did someone before me, so there's someone out there who can make this challenge trivially easy ("been there, done that"). Second, if there's a demand, there will be a supplier.

That means, if you can finagle it, you can get the info for free (you still have to learn and put in work, risk getting it wrong the first time around). But if you can pay, you can simply outsource that shit to someone much more competent. Ricardo is a still valid - comparative advantages are a thing of beauty.And remember, you're not only paying for the work. Much more importantly, you're paying for the liability of a job well done. I outsource a tiny part of my employee records (dealing with insurance and social services and overtime hours and all that bullshit). I'm trained to do it myself, but fuck, I'd gladly pay a couple dozen bucks a month per employee to not have to fear me fucking up on some minor detail that brings down the full force of the financial, social and labour bureaucracy on my poor ass.

14 months ago

Harmless_Venom

@Fried_SushiReally? I don't follow US politics. I thought that dude was much more insane than demanding indexed wages. I thought he was a capitalist cutthroat asshole...

14 months ago

MPmaster

Money

14 months ago

Soft_member

@Stark_NakedCool, thanks! One last question though (actually two), how old were you when you started? And how much accounting do I need to know?

14 months ago

Gigastrength

@Soft_memberI must have been 22 when I founded. I was regularly the youngest person in the room when I was at a chamber of commerce event though...

There's no way I can answer the accounting question. That stuff's very dependent on your local rules and laws. In general (!) my experience in a couple of countries is that they usually have a long list of exceptions and simplifications for small businesses. Your local mom-and-pop shop has to comply, so how hard can they make it? *The* classic start-up is a guy between 45 and 55, who was a wageslave all his life and now wants to take his expertise and go independent. Most people starting a business have a skill they want to sell and backoffice (invoicing, record keeping, balances, cashflow) are an afterthought. This is what your local business agency has to be geared towards. So you *need* zero. And given you have to submit your first full records about a years after you started, you have a bit of time to figure it all out.

I'd still recommend a short introductory course. Something on the order of ~16 hours (two day course), just to see how it's done in practice. But in the end - keep every bill and invoice and you're mostly there. If there's something good around, buy a proper software, but Excel is probably enough to get you started. I don't think you strictly need a tax consultant, but then you need good numeracy to clue into mistakes on your own. If you're not good with numbers, better to outsource it wholesale.

14 months ago

Burnblaze

@GigastrengthI'm actually 22 now, funny enough. It's great to finally see somebody on Veeky Forums that has something of worth to say. Thanks for the help, its making me feel a bit more confident that I can actually do this.

@Crazy_NiceSame.I employ four people (two full, two partime), as well as offer paid work experience for local colleges and uni.Do I make a lot? No. Do I make enough? Yes.Guess it's the ol' teacher training coming out.

14 months ago

Evilember

@New_ClicheThe challenge of making a system that is self-sustaining and operates autonomously.